


when you're with me

by maridoll



Series: catharsis [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pokemon Fusion, M/M, SofA 2020, bc im v predictable at this point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:15:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25677958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maridoll/pseuds/maridoll
Summary: i uhhhhhhh took a lot of creative liberties w the mythical creatures prompt hah, hope this is still good!
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Series: catharsis [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1903216
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6
Collections: Seasons of Anime Exchange 2020





	when you're with me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [miyamellyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miyamellyn/gifts).



> i uhhhhhhh took a lot of creative liberties w the mythical creatures prompt hah, hope this is still good!

Tooru’s eyes pop open immediately once the smell of smoke hits his nose, and the next moment he’s being shaken, frantic hands on his shoulders until he makes a noise in the back of his throat. He does his best to sit up quickly, legs aching, and his breathing comes a little quicker as he holds a hand to cover his mouth. 

“We have to go,” Hajime tells him, rising from his crouch. He eyes Tooru’s hand oddly but doesn’t question it, shifting around until he bumps into the stick functioning as a makeshift cane and pulls it towards them. 

Tooru grabs his sweater from the end of the bed and pulls it on, holding his breath, and then slides to the edge of the bed to grab the stick. He presses the back of his hand over his nose and lets Hajime help him up, then they both stumble to the doorway. Hajime picks up both bags and turns back, and there’s alarm in his eyes but there’s also concern, and Tooru can’t help but read it as a stab of pity. 

He understands why as he moves outside, legs threatening to buckle, and realizes the air was clear. Tooru drops his arm with a vicious sigh, eyes on the ground. 

They don’t stay there for long. Hajime reaches out, grabs one hand tight, and holds it close to his chest for a moment. Tooru looks up to meet his gaze, and then Hajime releases him, tugging him along the path. 

“There’s no fire,” he murmurs, just low enough for Tooru to remember the alarm in his eyes, to remember that he was woken up in the middle of the night and they were making their way around Blackthorn in the dead of night. “You’re okay.” 

Tooru allows himself one moment to squeeze his eyes shut. And then he tunes everything out. The pain coursing down his legs. The ache in his chest. How the cane-stick creaks dangerously with each motion. He focuses only on what he can make of Hajime’s feet in the waning light of the moon, following his path exactly through the rough terrain and doing his best to keep pace. 

In the dark and the quiet, their footsteps are like bolts of lightning to Tooru’s ears, and he knows Hajime feels the same way. The only cover they have is the noise of the wind winding through the mountainous path, catching on anything in its way, and howling past unsuspecting obstacles. 

Tooru looks up as Hajime stumbles, eyes trained on his back now instead of his feet. The area around Blackthorn was rocky, and the only vegetation around was scrubby and stiff. It was easier to get your foot caught in a rock than by a root, but since this particular path had been torn up the month prior, they didn’t know quite what they were walking into. They weren’t near the river that ran around Blackthorn’s southern side, but Tooru wouldn’t be surprised to find dead fish among their path, should the moon choose to reveal them. 

Hajime settles himself and glances back, nodding once to Tooru. Then they move forward again, and Tooru takes his mind away from the upturned earth to realize he wasn’t looking down anymore, and it’s at that moment he trips. 

His cane-stick slides from his grip, but there’s no audible _crunch_ to suggest it has broke or splintered, and Tooru counts that as a small blessing as he lifts up his hand, wincing at the sharp pain coming from the cut on his palm. 

Hajime is beside him in an instant, eyes caught on the blood welling up from the cut, and Tooru grits his teeth. “Sorry,” he whispers, and then he lifts up his other hand and hovers two fingers over the cut. Hajime’s breath catches as Tooru begins to mutter the words, and he crowds around his further, shielding him from view just as his hand begins to glow, and the blood slowly stops flowing. Tooru frowns as the pain refuses to lessen, but he supposes that would have to do for now. He drops his good hand and the glow disappears, and Hajime drops down to kneel at his side, cane-stick in one hand and furrowed brows on his face. 

“Careful,” he breathes, taking hold of Tooru’s injured hand. The cut had sealed, some, but that was about it. Hajime takes a strip of cloth from his waist and hastily ties it around Tooru’s palm in a cover, and then urges him to take the cane-stick. After he’s standing again, Hajime kneels forward and turns the sharp rock Tooru had cut himself on facedown, then goes the extra step and buries it in dirt and debris. Only then does he also get to his feet, make sure Tooru is ready, and get moving again. 

Tooru keeps his eyes on the ground, this time. That was a waste of time they couldn’t afford, and at each high-pitched howl of the wind or any other noise distinctly human-like, Tooru finds himself holding his breath, growing light-headed from the effort and leaning heavily on his makeshift cane. Hajime stops them a number of times, ears pricked, his hand fisted loosely into the front of Tooru’s sweater until he’s sure they’re not about to run into anyone from the village. 

The going is slow, but the make it around the mountain before the sun begins to rise. They’re presented with a gap in the rock’s surface, narrow but enough to squeeze through, certainly. The ground before it is dusted with snow, and Tooru shivers at the thought before steeling himself. They didn’t have a choice about wandering in. Going all the way down the mountain at night was suicide, and especially now that the terrain was unknown. This was their only viable option. 

He takes a deep breath, tightens his hold on his cane-stick, and gives a terse nod to Hajime’s questioning look. 

Then they enter into the Ice Path. 

\- 

It’s cold, and Tooru’s legs ache. 

He’s long-since tugged the sleeves of his sweater down over his hands, but that does little to help. His fingers feel like ice shards where they’re clutched around the handle of his cane-stick. His toes are no better, cold seeping through his worn, thin shoes. Hajime is ahead of him, crushing the particularly thorny ice crystals that grew into the narrow path under his soles, which left Tooru to walk on the dust and crumbles it created. 

The cave isn’t dark like he was expecting. It wasn’t exactly light, but the walls being made of ice were reflecting something, because they cast a glow on the surroundings. 

Hajime pushes through a gap in the path and they both stumble out into a bigger space. Tooru isn’t exactly reassured. It it were one winding path, he would rather take that than end up lost or turned around inside a larger area. 

He sneezes suddenly and the effort it takes makes his legs shake. Hajime turns at the noise, startled, and then turns further once he sees the shape Tooru is in. He looks around, steps forward, carefully grabs Tooru by the wrist that wasn’t holding anything, and tugs them both into a corner of something. An ice block, if Tooru had to guess, but everything was made of ice, so it didn’t make a difference. He feels the chill seep into his legs, but after walking for so long, it actually feels good. He sighs in relief and leans his head back. Hajime settles beside him and brings his wrist closer, inspecting the bandage tied around his palm. “We should probably change this,” he mutters. 

He says this, but there are hidden intonations Tooru grasps, too. Mainly, that they had a limited supply of everything, and he didn’t particularly want to use up another strip of cloth. Tooru purses his lips and thinks, eyes focused on the ceiling far above them, where stalactites hung down. He takes his hand from Hajime slowly and brings it up to inspect the cloth. There’s not that much blood, all things considering. 

“Why don’t we clean this one?” he mutters. Hajime raises a brow and he elaborates. “There’s loose sleet all over the place. If we use one of the matches, we can gather some and melt it down, and then clean this off. Probably clean the wound, too.” Yeah, now that he thought about it, the second was definitely more important. 

“There’s probably a divot around here somewhere,” Hajime muses, standing. He moves around the ice block, examining it, then crouches next to another one a few paces away, still in Tooru’s line of sight if he tilts his head back down. “This one should be deep enough,” he calls back. “You stay there, I’ll get the ice.” 

Tooru has no complaints there, especially when the ice begins to numb his legs. Unfortunately it’s only the backs, but it’s better than nothing. He shivers and gathers his arms to his chest, careful of his injured hand. 

Hajime comes back after some time has passed to collect a single match from one of their packs. He moves back over to where he was and lights it, and Tooru finds his eyes don’t leave the flame until it’s sizzled out. 

“It should be melted enough. Still slushy, but mostly water.” Hajime moves to Tooru’s side and helps him up, catching him slightly when his legs threaten to give out. Foregoing the cane-stick entirely, he hooks Tooru around the waist and pulls him forward, and they stumble over to the small pool of water. Tooru takes a seat on the ice block, high enough to let his legs dangle, and unwraps his hand. He lets Hajime take the bandage while he submerges his wound, wincing at the temperature. On the other side of the block, Hajime scrubs the cloth the best he can in the limited space of the water. 

“I wish we had soap,” he mutters. “It’s weird to not have soap.” 

“You knew it would be like this,” Tooru sighs, lifting his reddened hand out. He mumbles the same words from the other night and lifts fingers from his other hand to press against the wound. The small glow it gives off has the same effect the match did, as Hajime stops scrubbing the cloth until Tooru is done and they’re once again immersed in the dim glow of the Ice Path. 

Hajime wrings the bandage out the best he can to keep it from freezing, and they decide to let it dry out a little before re-wrapping the wound. 

They settle back down next to their stuff and Tooru stubbornly tries to re-work some feeling back into his hand. “Where are we going after we get out?” 

“Let me get the map.” Not that it would do much good. The map was years old, penned out by someone with less-than-stellar skills, and written in near-illegible script. It wasn’t like there was anyone in the village that could correct the mistakes, either. No one had been out of Blackthorn since the last time someone had taken up the trial, so they were all oblivious to the world outside. 

Well. There was Tooru, but it wasn’t like he had any memory of it. He’d been far too young. 

Hajime unfolds the yellowed paper and sets it out over both their laps. He points to the corner, where they knew Blackthorn was. “If we come out somewhere around here . . ah, this place.” He squints. “Malogary?” 

Tooru bends forward. “Monogumy, I think.” 

“No, I’m pretty sure that’s not it.” 

“Iwa-chan, I’m positive it’s not Malogary.” 

Hajime sighs. “Well, whatever. It doesn’t really matter. We’ll find out when we get there.” 

He reaches back to check on the bandage and Tooru takes the chance to dig through the bags. Hajime turns around at the noise and frowns. “What are you doing?” 

“Looking for the Pokedex.” 

“Oh.” Hajime’s lips drop further. “Let me wrap your hand back up, first.” 

Tooru pulls back and allows him to do so, satisfied by the cleaner state, and then pulls a worn book from one of the bags. The spine is cracked, the leather worn and tapered, and the binding unstable. He’s careful as he opens it to the marked page, swiping away faint traces of dust. On the center spread is an inked depiction of a bird, cut in half by the crease of the book. Handwritten notes were dotted around the form, in a much better script than their map. At the top was a title, _Ho-Oh._

Tooru traces the pattern of the wings with his fingers. “Do you think it exists?” 

Hajime leans back, looking away. “It has to,” he mumbles, though he’s not really sure if he believes himself. “Or there’s no point in any of this.” 

\- 

Tooru lets out a startled huff as his cane-stick slips on an uneven patch of ice, and he catches himself on a column of ice to keep from falling back, but only after he’s slammed into it from losing his footing. Hajime perks up and glances back, throwing his head over his shoulder, and he stops cold when he sees how precariously balanced Tooru is. He turns to shuffle back, but Tooru is already waving him off, mindful of the ground as he regains his footing. 

“I hate this place,” he mutters, leaning heavily on his makeshift crutch. Hajime quirks a brow, but it’s clear Tooru was good, so he turns forward again without comment. 

It’s too quiet. It had been since they entered. There was no echo, so there was no sound from their footsteps, or the off-beat _ka-klak_ of Tooru’s stick. It was unnerving. He felt like ambush was inevitable when you couldn’t hear someone approach. 

Tooru clenches his injured hand and grits his teeth with the motion, slowly unfurling his fingers away from the bandage. 

The Ice Path is not kind to them. The ice piles up in uneven patches on the floor, clumping in a way that made the level portions seem more like dips. Tooru finds himself glancing down more than up, keeping track only on where he should tread next, and more relying on Hajime’s shoes in his peripheral to know he was keeping pace. 

Ice formations building up from the floor become more common, leaving the two to weave around them. Tooru is too busy looking down to notice, but it doesn’t escape Hajime how some of the pillars are jagged at the top, like someone had taken a club and bashed it against the ice. There’s no shards around to prove it was recent, but considering how fast the water froze over earlier, it was possible any debris could’ve simply fused with whatever it landed on. 

It’s daunting to think about, so Hajime quickly turns his thoughts elsewhere. 

The ceiling gets low at one point, and Tooru, being the taller of the two, has to duck down to be able to move forward. This, coupled with the fact that the stalactites were starting to grow more in number, made the Ice Path even more annoying to traverse than it was originally. It didn’t help that Tooru kept expecting someone to tap him on the shoulder, and his muscles were bunched just waiting for it. 

His legs hurt. The cold was making his arms numb, yet his legs felt like they were on- 

The path narrows to a point where there was no choice but to walk single-file, and even then Tooru has to suppress a shiver as his shoulders meet ice. It’s uncomfortable to walk relying on the cane-stick with the arm guiding it flat in front of his body, but at least the ground is more even. It could be worse, too. He could be Hajime, squished between the passage and the two bags he carried. 

An odd light makes the ice change color, going a deeper shade yet not quite red, and Tooru siezes up as he rounds the same corner Hajime has just come to a halt ahead of. He bumps into one of the bags, catching Hajime’s attention, and Tooru just barely sees a bit of tension bleed out from his posture. 

Without thinking, he reacts by leaning forward and squeezing one of Hajime’s forearms. Hajime relaxes more, but it’s forced, and so is the false sense of security in his eyes when he turns back to nod at Tooru. They separate too soon, and Hajime steps forward again to guide them out of the cave. 

Tooru has a fleeting moment where he wonders if he would have enjoyed the Ice Path more had he actually been paying attention to the natural formations out of admiration than of annoyance. Had he the time, would he have been able to appreciate it instead of finding it all a nuisance? 

The odd light was the sun setting, they discover upon exiting. They have a high vantage point, still being in the mountains, but even then it’s nothing more than a ball of red low on the horizon. 

Tooru’s feet make a _schwop_ sound and he looks down and immediately frowns in distaste upon noticing the gathered snow. He looks up and can’t help but let out a low _ugh_ as he sees how far the snow was spread. 

Hajime sighs, but it has more feeling and more weight to be one of exasperation. He turns slightly towards Tooru and surprises him with the ease in tension. There’s even something like a smile on his face. 

“We shouldn’t venture too far down in the dark,” he says, and Tooru realizes with a start that he says it at normal volume. “Let’s find some place to stop.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Tooru replies, voice small and strained. He prides himself on not being very emotional, but he really does feel like crying. The full weight of being out of the cave hits him and the load on his shoulders falls. When he steps forward, even as he has to watch himself in descending the mountain, he finds it’s much easier to move. There’s no longer a tightness in his motions. 

It’s like leaving the Ice Path behind means they’re out of reach. Tooru hasn’t felt this free in a long time. 

They move far enough to leave the snow behind, but the ground is still damp and biting cold where they do decide to settle down. Tooru feels tired down in the depths of his bones, but that doesn’t stop him from shivering as he works his way to the ground. Hajime must realize this, because he’s tossing something over his shoulder from one of the bags, and a weight lands heavy on the ground beside Tooru’s bent knees. 

He blinks, reaching blind in the waning light. When his fingers feel fur, he casts a grateful look to Hajime’s back, then quickly unfurls the blanket and tugs it around his shoulders. Hajime digs out the second one from the other bag and rises from his crouch. If Tooru feels good about tucking his blanket underneath him, then Hajime has no qualms over tossing his over the both of them. It’s big enough to cover most of them, and while Tooru usually wouldn’t mind curling his legs to get under the wool, Hajime won’t let him. 

“You need to keep them straight,” he urges. Tooru pouts, but he’s too tired to push, so he relents. He does push away the bag Hajime offers him, shrugging at the look he receives. “I don’t need them up,” he mutters. “Use it as a pillow instead.” 

Hajime sighs, also lacking the energy to press, and gives up. He makes sure they’re both settled and leans back against the bag, frowning at the discomfort as he attempts to fold the wool around his side. 

Tooru forgoes his pillow entirely in favor of twisting until he’s cushioned against Hajime’s chest, pulling the fur blanket so it settles where the wool can’t reach. Hajime sighs again, but he doesn’t push Tooru away. They’re finally far enough from Blackthorn to feel safe, and he’s worn out. Tooru can do what he wants. 

He thinks he feels someone ruffling his hair, but Tooru might also be imagining it. He falls asleep before he can prove anything. 

\- 

Tooru’s eyes shoot open and it takes feeling the fur on his fingers and hearing the heartbeat under his ear for him to realize where he was. There’s an immediate comfort in the darkness, and it irks him to realize this, as his pounding heart rate ever so slightly begins to decline. 

His legs _ache_ , so much so he can’t stand it. Carefully, he pushes himself to a sitting position and slides out from underneath the wool. His hand just barely locks around the edge of his cane-stick, and he props it up to give him a boost, arm trembling as he puts most of his weight there to keep from falling. 

Hajime is a heavy sleeper. If Tooru having a night terror on top of him didn’t wake him, he wasn’t waking up any time soon. It didn’t help that they were both mentally exhausted, and had been moving since the night they left Blackthorn. Tooru suppresses a yawn and thinks glumly that he would also like to be asleep, and how unfortunate was it that he had woken before the sun was even out. 

Looking around reveals a tree stump not too far away, and Tooru stumbles over until he’s sitting on it. It’s big enough to where just his ankles hang off. Upon noticing this, Tooru realizes he forgot to grab any supplies. He jerks his head up to where his bag sat, a fair distance away. He could drag it over, but he didn’t want to waste the little stamina he had recovered, so he leaves it. 

Tooru jerks his pants down until he can slide the cuffs over his feet and tugs the blanket lower so it was keeping him warm but wasn’t getting in the way. He frowns immediately, because even through the bandages, he can tell his legs were swelling. It he could just work on reducing that, maybe the pain would dull enough to let him get some more sleep. 

Deciding on that, Tooru reaches out a hand to undo the wrap on his left leg. He freezes when he notices his hand is shaking. 

It’s not from the cold. 

Gritting his teeth, Tooru bends his leg until he can get underneath, and untucks the edge of the bandage. It’s slow, but he works on unwinding the cloth, methodically rolling it up as he goes. The air hits the top of his thigh first, and he holds his breath until he realizes it doesn’t hurt. 

Tooru drops his hands, leans back on his palms, and turns his face to the sky. He closes his eyes and sucks in a big breath, trying to relax. Of course. The air wasn’t going to hurt it. The bandage was for protection from infection, and from it rubbing up against other fabric. It was okay. 

It was going to be okay. 

He lets out a little laugh, and then cracks his eyes as he registers the light. Oh, that was right. They were pretty elevated, so the sun would rise sooner for them than for others. 

“I wonder if Iwa-chan will let me sleep in,” Tooru mumbles, and then he drops his leg down to further relax. 

His eyes shoot open and he bites his lips to keep from squealing. Then the smell hit him, and he lifts a hand to slam against his mouth, even if he’s already gagging. Tooru whimpers, tears pricking his eyes, and glances down to find what he had rolled up squished between the stump and his thigh. Instead, revealed by the low light of the rising sun, he sees his left leg for the first time, up until he’d stopped undoing the wrap around his knee. 

Tooru jerks in panic and the movement makes his flesh curl, and he lets out a scream in anguish, unable to contain it. Once he starts, he doesn’t stop, screaming and crying and looking anywhere but _there_ , too terrified to see it again. He thrashes about, the pain inconsolable, and he does it until Hajime is right there, hands tight on his shoulders, forehead against his own, and murmuring over and over again, _Tooru, Tooru._

Tooru lets out another cry and lets his eyes feet Hajime’s. He almost doesn’t believe it’s real, because he hasn’t heard that tone of voice in a long time. But he’s right there, steadying him, telling him it would be alright, trying to get him to breathe again. He backs off to kneel beside the stump, and Tooru doesn’t look away fast enough, eyes met with- 

Another scream tears from his throat, and he jerks both hands in front of his face, closing his eyes tightly. Hajime stops him from moving, grabbing both legs by his ankles. “I can’t I _can’t_ I can’t-” Tooru goes, on and on, shaking his head and crying and gasping and filled with so much pain that he doesn’t even register Hajime lifting his left ankle to rest on his right, sliding his hands under until he can take hold of the bandage, slowly rewrapping it until none of it is exposed anymore. 

Tooru’s still crying, but he lets Hajime slide his hands away from his face. He lets him whisper that it was okay, that everything was going to be okay, but he didn’t believe him. 

Nothing would ever be okay again. 

\- 

They reach a signpost early in the morning. Though the overcast sky made reading it difficult, they could clearly make out a ‘h’ in the middle, in stark contrast to the worn letters around it. 

“So neither of us was right,” Tooru mutters. If only their map was penned better. 

“We can just ask someone.” Hajime tilts his head forward. “Come on. Let’s go.” 

Not long after passing the sign, the grass underfoot becomes flat, an indication it had been tread on recently. There’s not a clear path, but Tooru feels uneasy as they move forward, like they were intruding on something. Like someone was watching them. 

There’s a rusted tower far to the right, most of it hidden by the trees. It’s a lookout space, but it didn’t appear to be in use. Still, both of them look away and decide not to venture any closer. 

They both take a pretty straight path, but the grass goes from being a flat strip to puffing back up, only worn in patches. Something about it freaks Tooru out. It was almost like someone had jumped from patch to patch, or landed hard in one spot and vanished in thin air. 

There are marks on the tree trunks now. Scores, like someone had driven a knife across. Deeper ones, like something had gotten stuck deep within the bark. Tooru turns his eyes away before too long, and he urges his mind to not think on it any further. 

Finally, they clear the trees and come into a clearing, the grass beaten into submission and giving way entirely to packed dirt. Tooru stops just on the edge of the treeline, still feeling watched. His eyes move until he catches another watchtower past the far side of the clearing, hidden again by trees. Only the top was visible. 

The sky rumbles, and Tooru chews on his bottom lip. Hajime glances back and he hurries forward, but his movements are shaky. 

People stop to eye them, but they go about their business fairly quickly. That seemed odd, but perhaps they were used to outsiders. 

Hajime catches the attention of a passing elderly man who tells them the name of the village: Mahogany. He squints after he does so, asking if they were in the right place, if they didn’t know that. 

“Our map is bad,” Hajime admits. “The writing isn’t easy to read. And the sign back there is so worn we could hardly make anything out.” 

“Ah.” The man nods. “That one out east does need some work, I’ll admit. Afraid you won’t find much here. Most people pass through on their way to the lake.” 

  
  
  


“The lake?” The younger man they’d stopped next frowns, putting a finger to his chin. “You mean Lake of Rage? I guess people used to go there, but not much anymore.” 

“Why?” Hajime asks. 

The man shrugs. “It’s up north.” He points that way, specifically at the darkening storm clouds. “But the weather is always bad. Most people who want to fish just go out west.” 

  
  
  


“Lake of Rage? Yeah, there’s a story to the name.” The kid hums. “I think it’s sick? Not the lake, but something in it. That’s why it rains all the time.” 

Tooru’s eyes narrow. “What’s in it?” 

“I don’t know the story that well,” the kid admits. “I heard it a long time ago, because the granddaughter of the old lady that runs the shop told me.” His shoulders droop. “But I haven’t seen her in a long time.” 

Tooru eyes Hajime, who subtly nods. They thank the kid, wander back to the clearing, and follow the directions the old man had given them for a place to stop for supplies. 

Hajime eases the door open, holding it out for Tooru. His cane-stick is loud on the wood flooring, alerting the woman who sat behind a large counter. They barely have a chance to make it inside and glance at the trinkets lining the walls before she’s calling out to them. 

“Oh! Hello there.” She waves them forward. “What can I help you with?” 

“We heard you tell a riveting story about the lake up north,” Hajime says. “Something about it being sick?” 

The woman blinks. She’s quiet for a few moments, assessing them. Then she pulls her greying hair behind her shoulders and sighs, leaning back in her seat. “The last person to ask me that didn’t come back.” Her lips tremble for a second, and then she’s shaking her head. “Fine. If you want to know, I’ll tell you.” 

They both take a seat on the opposite side of the counter. Hajime sits cross-legged on the space cushion, while Tooru folds his legs over his lap, not willing to bend them. 

“Long ago, there was a group of serpents that lived in the wetlands up north. One day they grew into a struggle, and their anger stirred up a viscous storm that devoured the land. It left behind a crater that filled with water, though it had a particular tick. The crater didn’t quite separate from the woodlands, and so with heavy rainfall, part of the forest to the west of the crater flooded. On days with light rain, the forest floor becomes visible, but it is tricky to navigate. The weather is unpredictable, too, and people would get lost out there and end up submerged beneath the water. Not just people, but the creatures of the woodlands, as well. 

One day, a creature got swept up by the swelling lake and drowned in its depths. The skies weeped in response, flooding the land around the crater even more, and the borders of that are what we mark the lake as today, to avoid people wandering into parts that could easily become flooded. 

There’s been something lurking in the water for a long time now. Most people say it’s the same creature that drowned so long ago, revived by an ancient being, and it created terrible weather in anger for its fate. The tale I always heard was a little different. The remnant of the serpents that created the lake, their kin, still swam on the lake floor. It controlled the weather, causing various storms in the area, to keep everyone away, so that no one would suffer the same fate as the revived creature. But doing that for so long took its toll, and the serpent grew sick. There are some days of heavy storms, and then the majority are light, and then there are rare days with no rain at all, when the serpent is at its weakest. 

The name Lake of Rage comes from the anger the revived creature felt and therefore inflicted. In the version I was often told, it came from the weather the serpent caused.” She shrugs. “Who knows what the true version is, but that’s all there is to it.” 

“The revived creature,” Tooru begins, holding her gaze. “Do you know what it is?” 

“No.” She shakes her head. “Could be anything. Something from the woods, like a squirrel or rabbit, or a human, or one of the serpents. There was never any distinction to it. Guess it’s identity wasn’t that important.” 

They buy some tea in thanks for hearing the story, and drink it outside of the shop, sitting against one of the walls. Tooru takes a sip and eyes the swelling clouds to the north. “Something is bothering me.” 

“Yeah?” Hajime lowers his own tea. “Like what?” 

“If the creature’s identity isn’t the important part, then the fact it was revived _is._ No matter which version of the story is true, something being revived is the constant.” Tooru narrows his eyes. “I think I read that. I think I- Can I have the book?” 

Hajime sets his tea down to rifle through one of the bags, pulling the worn Pokedex out and passing it to Tooru. He flips easily to the illustration, fingers caressing near the middle of the page, where feathers fanned out to form a wing. He looks until he finds an inscription in the corner, and reads off carefully to Hajime. “Has the power to resurrect the dead. Referenced numerous times in different folklore.” 

Hajime’s eyes widen. “You think whatever’s in the lake has to do with Ho-Oh.” 

“The coincidence is uncanny, Iwa-chan.” Tooru looks up from the page. “At the very least, whatever’s there could be a pokemon. Even if we don’t find clues about Ho-Oh, knowing they exist has to mean _something._ ” 

“I’m with you.” He reaches out, takes the book from Tooru, careful of the binding. “We can at least go see.” 

  
  
  


“Lake of Rage?” The woman pales. “I wouldn’t go today. The storm is bad enough that it’s reached all the way here. Wait until it’s cleared up. It never lasts long.” 

They don’t like it, but they wait. The next day, it’s raining even harder. The next day, the sky still hasn’t cleared. 

“I thought the old woman said the storms were never bad anymore.” Tooru huffs. “What, did it get better?” 

“Maybe it’s just a bad omen,” Hajime murmurs. 

“It’s not stopping us from going!” Tooru protests. 

“No, you’re right.” Hajime turns from facing the window. “Let’s go today. We’ve waited too long.” 

\- 

Hajime has a hood covering his face, and he’s paging through the Pokedex, shielding it from the rain with his free arm. The fact he was paying it any sort of attention was an anomaly, in Tooru’s eyes, but not an unwelcome one. It becomes apparent when they make it to the wetlands leading to the lake, because Tooru’s makeshift cane begins to sag into the ground. 

The ground isn’t especially difficult to traverse barring this. They steer clear of the few ponds they encounter, there aren’t many trees or bushes outside of the woodlands to the west and the mountains boarded up the area to their right. 

The only bad thing is the rain. Hajime was doing a good job protecting it, but that book was so old and worn that Tooru feared for it in this kind of weather. Whatever he was looking for must be important. Tooru hadn’t bothered to ask, but now he was growing curious. 

The crashing of waves draws Tooru’s attention, and he stops short when he sees how close they’ve come to the lake. He puts a hand up above his eyes and scans the area, looking for any sort of structure in the mist. He’d reach out and grab Hajime as he passes him, but he was on his left, where he was holding the cane-stick. It wasn’t like he could whack him with it, either -he needed it for balance. 

“Hey,” Tooru says, voice rising to be heard above the rain. Hajime blinks, tearing his eyes away from the pages. “We’re here. Let’s find that guest inn they mentioned.” 

“Good idea.” Hajime closes the Pokedex and shoves it under his clothes to shield it from the rain. 

It’s not long before they happen across it, sheltered near where the mountains taper off and give way to a large expanse of trees that surround the lake. At least, as far as Tooru can see. He can’t make out the other shore, not in this weather, and he doubts he would be able to otherwise, considering the sheer size of the lake. He unfolds a map once they’re inside and sets it down on a low table. There’s not a contained body of water drawn bigger on their map than the Lake of Rage. 

Tooru has a thought, and he snatches a brush from one of their bags, bending low over the map. Hajime, who had sat at the corner of the table and reopened the Pokedex, looks up to eye him with suspicion. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Improving this.” 

“Wai-What?” 

Hajime sits up straighter, alarmed, but it’s too late. Tooru smiles and leans back, revealing where he’d penned in the lake’s name on top of the illustration. 

“There!” He glances up and his smile freezes in place when met with Hajime’s stare. “It’s okay, right, Iwa-chan? I’m only making it better.” 

His frown deepens. “I suppose so.” 

“Right, so with that logic, I’ll rewrite this, too!” He moves his hand down and writes ‘Mahogany’ nearly over the top of the scribbled name. It was so faded that it didn’t matter, anyway. Plus, the new version was legible, so really, the village elder had no room to complain when they returned it to her! 

He sobers up upon realizing the fault in this logic. That was assuming they ever saw her again. 

“What are you looking for?” he asks Hajime, to distract himself. 

“Oh, in this?” Hajime sets the book down. “Something to go off of, I guess. Things that live in water. Serpent-like ones. Big sea creatures. Any note on controlling the weather.” 

“Good idea.” Tooru puts the map aside. He wiggles his toes, then moves to stand, feeling restless. “I’m gonna look around some. See if there’s anything we can use.” 

The cabin is one room, and it proves to not hold much. There are a few spare items that would be useful if they stayed, but nothing to take with them in their trek around the lake. 

Tooru casts a glance at Hajime to find him still preoccupied by the book. He opens back door and slips out, curious as to why a second door was needed for such a small space. He finds his answer in a small storage space, and when he moves closer, discovers something perfect for their expedition. 

  
  
  


“A boat?” 

“A boat!” Tooru motions to it with a single hand. “Pretty good find, huh?” 

“Hm.” Hajime tips his head in his hand. “Actually, yeah. I was thinking on what we would do if we couldn’t see anything from the edge, but this is perfect. Now we can do directly to the deeper parts.” 

“Ah.” Tooru . . isn’t sure how he feels about that anymore. It hadn’t crossed his mind before now, but he was about to come face-to-face with what was essentially a monster. This thing _lived at the bottom of the lake._ It was such a terror that it drove all the fisherman off. It was rumored to control the weather. 

Not to mention the weather. They were under an overhang now, which was the only reason they weren’t soaked. The rain hadn’t let up at all, and despite all the warning signs, they were about to row out to the middle of the lake. 

Tooru turns to look over, where he can see a piece of the water from where they stand. “It’s flooded, isn’t it?” 

He knows he’s spoken aloud when Hajime places a concerned hand on his shoulder. Tooru jumps slightly, caught off-guard, and shakes his head. 

“No, sorry. It’s okay. We’ll be okay.” He does his best to grin. “Well? Are you ready?” 

Hajime stuffs the Pokedex under his clothes. They take a tarp from inside the cabin and throw it into the boat, then book it to the shore. 

It’s not really much of a shore, though. The area was already flooded, and the water line just barely rested below the dip in the ground. Even without having seen the lake at its normal state, anyone could see it was swelled up. 

Tooru sets his cane-stick in the small boat and climbs in, sitting carefully at the bottom with his legs stretched out below one of the seats. He takes the tarp and drapes it mostly over himself, then braces his hands along the sides as Hajime moves to the back and pushes the boat into the water. 

The rocking throws Tooru, and his eyes spin as he adjusts. The boat surges forward, and he reaches an arm out quickly to grab at the land. Hajime catches it instead, already crouched down, and uses the hold as leverage as he climbs in himself. 

Once he’s seated comfortable on one of the platforms, Hajime throws a leg over the side of the boat and kicks at the bank, pushing them off from the edge. Tooru throws the tarp the rest of the way over them and shuffles closer to the middle. 

They each take hold of an oar and work to turn the boat so that the front faced away from the bank. Already the waves were relentless, and they were less than ten yards out. Something kept drawing them inward. Not that that was bad, since that was where they were hoping to end up, but it was also a little foreboding, too. 

“The water’s so dark!” Hajime comments, raising his voice to be heard above the rain. Tooru nods, focusing on the lake beneath them. For it being the middle of the day, even if it was remarkably overcast, the water seemed almost inky. Even if something _was_ down there, they sure wouldn’t be able to see it before it broke the surface. 

Their boat curves, caught in some current that carries them left and in in a wide ark. Tooru’s breath catches, and he stops rowing in a panic. They’re released almost as soon as they’re caught, but both take a moment to blink at they other, startled. 

Tooru can’t make out the shoreline, now. They’ve rowed pretty far out. The wind howls around them, stirring up the waves, and Tooru braces himself as their boat is rocked, propelled forward more towards the center. The sky crackles overhead, and _booms_ as thunder roars, startling Tooru enough for him to let out a yelp that goes unnoticed by his companion. 

Far ahead, and to their left, a large wave kicks up and rolls to the right. Another one follows as the water settles in the aftermath, and another one after that sends a curtain of water high into the air, like a giant had lashed out at the water with its heel. Both Tooru and Hajime turn wide-eyed to stare at it, sensing the anomaly for what it was. 

Hajime is the first one to steel his nerves and move the oar so they were headed in that direction. Tooru’s heart is pounding in his chest, mostly because their boat was small and he knew if they tipped there was no way his legs were working well enough to keep him afloat. But Hajime throws his head back to give him a hard look, and Tooru starts paddling as well. 

The water has somewhat settled down, at least concerning big waves, but it’s still choppy enough to push them back from the direction they wanted to go, making moving forward a slow progress. A whole slew of water brushes over the rim of the boat, and Tooru hisses as it collides with his skin, sliding the tarp over to cover the sides more. 

That moment of distraction, of not paddling, costs him. “Tor-!” Hajime shouts, and he throws his head up, but it’s too late. 

Something breaks the surface not far ahead of them, and their little boat is sent spiralling to the right. Tooru screams as they lose control, begging the universe to not let them tip. Hajime releases his own oar to keep his arm from being yanked around. They both take a few breaths as they settle, still rocking but no longer spinning around, but an ear-splitting _roar_ doesn’t let them rest for long. 

Tooru’s heart is pounding in his ears as he looks to his left, and up, and up and up, until his eyes leave the stacked mass of red-colored scales and land on a dorsal fin almost flapping in the wind. It didn’t look right, like the structure was compromised. 

“Here!” Hajime says, bringing him back down to earth, and shoving his oar into Tooru’s free hand. He dives under the tarp, taking the Pokedex from the confines of his clothes, and begins flipping through the pages with wild abandon. 

Tooru’s not sure what to do, but he sure as hell doesn’t want to get any closer to that _thing._ He guides them in the beginning of a loop, moving further and then curving so they maintain the same distance. 

“Ugh, I can’t see from this angle,” Hajime complains from underneath the tarp. “Hey, Tooru, get its attention! I need to see the face.” 

“Are you crazy?” Tooru near-screams, but he already knows the answer. He looks around, but there’s nothing in the boat besides his cane-stick, and there’s nothing around them but water, and he was never going to yell loud enough in this raging storm to be noticed. 

_Oh._

There was that, but it had been a long time since he had tried it. 

He bites down on his lip, so hard he can taste the tang of blood. Well, if there was any time to try, it was _now_ , right? 

“Tooru!” Hajime yells again, and he steels himself, closing his eyes and releasing the oars. 

Then he dips his hand beneath the water, and braces his other against the other edge of their boat. The last sensation he feels is his bandage rubbing against the wood. 

The water _fissures_ , and the resulting pressure sends them rocketing back. They’re still far enough out that they can’t see the embankment, but when Tooru opens his eyes, he finds they’re much further away from the red serpent than they were previously. 

He also finds that the serpent is looking back, and that terrifies him enough to not realize his ears are still ringing, and not recognize the shout of pain the serpent had released finally come to an end. 

“That’s it!” Hajime says, and it’s the first thing Tooru hears since he had spoken last. He pokes his head from the tarp, pointing towards a page in the book. “Gyarados. It says here it’s anger causes storms. It’s very temperamental, so-” 

“Hajime,” Tooru croaks, and he sounds so forlorn that Hajime cuts himself off, eyes finally rising from the pages to look where Tooru was staring. 

In that moment the Gyarados -the _pokemon_ , Tooru realizes, because there was the undeniable fact before them that they _existed_ \- lets out another roar, and this one is undoubtedly of anger. Hajime wastes no time in folding the Pokedex back onto his person, and taking hold of both oars. He begins pushing them back, towards the western part of the lake, but the Gyarados has already dived down beneath the waves. The churning that creates leaves them going nowhere, and Tooru’s breathing quickens as he sees the water glide towards them, like something was burrowing in the ground, or swimming with the water curving above so it didn’t break the surface. 

They both let out panicked shouts when the Gyarados appears again a lot closer, a tower of red and yellow scales, and Tooru sees the tip of a barb he had spotted from the back was actually a three-pronged crest that sat on the Gyarados’ head. 

Its mouth opens in another roar, and Tooru moves without thinking, leaning back and pushing his arm into the water behind their boat, in the direction the Gyarados sat. He slides around, though, and his left leg bangs against the side of the boat. Tooru lets out a scream of pain that cuts short, leaving his mouth agape and his eyes screwed up as white hot erupts down his leg. 

The Gyarados opens its mouth wider to match Tooru’s, and he has a moment to acknowledge the speck of glowing white gathered in the middle before the pokemon shoots off a beam that blinds them. It hits the water near their boat, evaporating it immediately to steam, and Tooru can feel the heat as the shockwave ripples out. 

Too late, he realizes he’s in the air. Him and Hajime and the entire boat, careened high above the waves, and he can’t help but squeal when he realizes. They’re crashing down far too soon, hitting the water so hard it’s a miracle the wood doesn’t split. Tooru’s shins knock against Hajime’s seat so hard it sends falling back, and he hits his head hard enough against the front of the boat to see stars. They’ve lost the tarp somewhere along their fly, and that combined with the water that’s ended up in the bottom of the boat soaks them to the bone. 

Hajime regains enough of his senses to realize his head is brushing against something, and he tilts with a wince to be met with floating pine needles, and the top of a tree. He sees another a few feet away, and another, until it dawns on him that this must be the part of the lake that floods into the forest. 

He doesn’t know how dense the trees are, and that worries him enough to fear another attack from the Gyarados. He flips over and pulls Tooru into a sitting position, wincing as his head lolls and he groans. It doesn’t last long, Tooru cutting himself off to stare past Hajime. 

“Land,” he mumbles. 

He’s right, Hajime realizes. They must have ended up near the shore, because there’s a stretch of land just high enough that it was out of the water, and a cluster of trees sat on top, concealing inland from further view. Still, it was good enough, and Hajime takes the oars and rows them all they way there, until the boat bumps against the edge and he can slide out. 

Tooru leans forward as soon as Hajime is out, eyes wide, and slaps his hands against the seat Hajime had been on. He winces when he tries to move further, and Hajime stops him from trying to stand. As quick as he can without making himself dizzy, he tugs the front of the boat until most of it is out of the water, then reaches in to wrap his arms around Tooru’s middle, sliding him out. He leaves him there for a minute as he pulls the boat the rest of the way out and grabs the cane-stick from the bottom. He tucks that under his arm, helps Tooru to his feet himself, and walks them a few paces inland. 

Then his head spins, and he collapses, and Tooru loses his balance enough to displace his footing. He ends up steadying himself using Hajime’s shoulders, but the weight only sends him crashing to the ground. Without anything to support him, Tooru falls too, letting out a startled cry. 

He doesn’t get back up by himself again. 

\- 

Hajime wakes and is pleasantly surprised to feel warm. He opens his eyes to a low wooden ceiling, and hums when he twitches his fingers and feels thick cloth. 

“I wouldn’t move much just yet.” 

The voice is unfamiliar, but Hajime heeds the advice, only glancing to his right to see the older man leaned back in a rocking chair. His face is unfamiliar, and that thought calms Hajime’s raging heart rate. “Tooru,” he croaks, then blinks, surprised by his own voice. 

“The one with you? He’s fine. Well, at least, he’s not in any worse shape than he was originally.” The old man frowns. “He’s asleep in the other room. I wanted to light a fire to warm you both up, but he was adamant about not being involved in any of that, so I wrapped him up and left him alone.” 

Hajime’s heart plummets. Of course. He’d been so careful, from cooking fish he’d catch on the other side of the ponds he and Tooru happened across on their trek down the mountain, to having them settled before the sun set to avoid the use of a campfire, to watching that stupid match in the Ice Path so it didn’t flicker because even if it was just a small, singular flame he- 

He realizes, then, that the light he had assumed was the sun coming through the window was flickering, casting a dancing shadow on the wall. If he turned his head, he was sure he would see the small fire, but he didn’t, because that seemed like a bad idea. 

“You’ve got a nasty knot on your head,” the old man says, confirming Hajime’s worries. “It ain’t bleeding any, but I wrapped it just in case. Like I said, I wouldn’t move much yet. Maybe wait until the sun is out. I’ve been up watching you. You probably don’t remember, but I’ve woken you a handful of times. Not s’posed to let anyone with a head injury sleep for too long. I’ll let you lie here until it’s light enough to douse the fire, and then I’ll bring your friend in. Sound good?” 

“Thank you,” Hajime rasps, in lieu of a proper answer. The old man waves him off. 

“Promise not to do anything that reckless again and I’ll consider letting you off easy.” He croaks out a laugh at Hajime’s alarmed expression. “Relax. I’m only kiddin. I don’t expect anything from either of ya.” He shrugs. “Well, it’s not like I get much company out here. Just stay until you’re well enough to travel again, and I’ll consider that thanks enough.” 

A noise from further in the house makes the man glance back. “Hm. That might be your friend. Speaking of which-” He turns back to face Hajime, a hard glint in his eyes. “He wouldn’t let me touch those bandages of his. I don’t know the state of the wound underneath, but they were soaked pretty bad, and he could hardly hobble around after me on that stick o’ his. You should say something.” 

Hajime’s eyes turn back to the ceiling. “Right,” he mutters. But what was he supposed to say? It’s not like he was qualified to take care of it. The village elder had healed it enough to stop the bleeding and bind it up, but it was really up to Tooru to take care of the rest. The memory of his wailing at the _sight_ of it all those nights ago comes to the forefront of Hajime mind, and he finds himself grimacing. No, he wasn’t ready yet. They would deal with it when he was, regardless of the state the wound was in. It wouldn’t do them any good if Tooru worked himself up into a frenzy again. It might even just make things worse. 

The old man rises from his chair. “I’ll go check on him. Try an’ get more sleep. I’ll be back later.” 

“Right,” Hajime mumbles again. He does feel tired. Might as well follow the advice. 

\- 

“ _Where_ are you?” The old man raises a brow. “Still on the lake, ‘m afraid.” 

“What?” Tooru leans forward from his perch on Hajime’s bed. “But I saw land! We grounded the boat!” 

“You did. On an island.” He laughs at their stupified expressions, so loud it echoes off the walls. “Yer still nowhere near the shores of Lake a Rage. This place is barely in the treeline. Oh?” he leans forward to match Tooru. “But how is there an island when all tha trees are covered? Simple! This is a high piece a land! When the water comes in, it’s pretty much an island. When the water leaves, it’s pretty much unscalable.” He leans back again, throwing his head back with a sigh. “I’ve been _stuck here_ for a long time, y’see. Was fishing in the lake when a storm hit. I shipwrecked and ended up here.” He shrugs. “Not so bad, anymore. Nice an quiet.” His brows furrow. “‘Cept for when folks like you go disturbing the Gyarados.” 

Hajime perks up. “You know what it is?” 

“Course I do! I saw that you did, too. Yer pretty lucky that fancy book a yours didn’t get waterlogged.” He winks. “Y’know, there’s an old story about this place meant to deter travellers.” 

“We’ve heard,” Tooru mutters, now sulking. 

“You did, huh? Yet yer still here.” He rubs at his chin. “Well, since you’re stuck right now, why don’t I tell you tha real version?” 

“Real.” Hajime’s eyes narrow. “You mean, which of the two we heard was the truth?” 

“No, no. I told you, right? There’s a story floatin’ around to deter folks like you from comin’ here. There’s that one, and then there’s the one that actually happened.” 

Tooru and Hajime share a look. In the end, Tooru is the one to speak, leaning back on his hands. “Enlighten us, then.” 

“The real one goes somethin’ like this. Long ago, a group of Gyarados migrated to these parts. They’re really easy to anger, and all of ‘em living together stirred up a violent storm with how enraged they became. That storm churned up the land into a crater, which is the Lake a Rage today. But it also messed up some of the land in the forest to the west of the crater. Eventually, water filled the crater, and the forest grew back. The Gyarados grew old and spawned and grew old again, until less and less remained. 

One day, when there were only three Gyarados left, it stormed so much that the lake flooded, and the water ran into the part of the forest that had been torn up so long ago. One a the Gyarados got swept up, and spent so long trying to navigate the flooded forest that the storm stopped. When all the water receded, it left the Gyarados lost on dry land, and it died there. 

The other Gyarados grew furious over this. They went into a rampage. One a them went to destroy the shoreline where the lake sat, making it all a little bigger, while the other headed east, wrecking everything in its path. It destroyed a village in a single night, and even leveled part of the mountain. That’s why it cuts off at the lakefront, and the forest takes hold a both sides.” He frowns. “That’s the story, but if I’m honest, I don’t know that I believe that part. 

Anyway, after all that, the Gyarados tired themselves out so much that they ended up dying, too. Seeing all the destruction they had caused, the countryside wrecked and the village in mayhem, the land god, Ho-Oh, sought to restore order. It used its power to resurrect the Gyarados that had died in the forest, blessing it with longer life by reviving it as a baby, and giving it red coating to help ward off strangers that cross its path. Ho-Oh also enlisted help to make a new forest to the east where the mountain was destroyed, and even relocated the village to south of the lake, a safe distance away. 

He crosses his arms and shrugs. “That’s all I know. If I had to guess, the Gyarados out in the lake now is just as temperamental as the ones before it, and when it gets angry it makes the weather bad. It’s a little hard to believe it’s still holding a grudge against the land for killing it, but there are some that say it’s always creatin’ storms to keep other aquatic life from dying the same way it did.” He laughs, uncrossing his arms. “That’s a little more unbelievable, if ya ask me.” 

“So it’s the other way around,” Tooru breathes. “No one drowned. It was the lack of water that killed the revived one.” 

“Oh, people do still drown. Why d’ya think I’ve never tried to leave this place? That’s just not important to the story.” 

“Ho-Oh,” Hajime speaks up. “You mentioned Ho-Oh. So it’s true? Ho-Oh can ressurrent people? Ho-Oh is real?” 

“Hmm. People, I’m not sure. There are numerous tales about it reviving pokemon, though.” He leans forward again. “Is it real? Well I’m not sure. I’ve heard many a story about it where I’m from, but I’ve never seen any sign of it. Not all gods exist, right?” He winks. 

“But this one has to,” Tooru insists. Hajime grabs on his sleeve in warning and Tooru settles down. “I mean, people have to have seen it before, right?” 

“Sure, but who’s to say they didn’t make it up? Claiming you met god is a big boost to your reputation.” 

Something in that line stabs Tooru in the heart, and his eyes go wide. He quiets down after that. 

“Do you have any other information?” Hajime asks, casting a concerned glance at Tooru before fixing his attention on the man. 

“I do, but it’s all stuff I’ve heard long in the past. If you want it to be any help, you should go to my old town and hear it for yourselves. It’s way south of here, in a place called Violet.” 

Tooru frowns, bemused by the lack of information. Then a thought dawns on him. “You won’t come with us? We have a boat.” _You can leave_ , he doesn’t say. 

“Hmm.” The old man shrugs. “That boat of yours looks like it can barely hold the both of you. Plus, I’ve been here so long that this is really my home, now.” He grins. “If I’m not here waitin’, who else is going to take care of the people dumb enough to venture onto tha lake?” 

Hajime huffs out a laugh. “Got us there. I know you don’t want to hear it, but thank you.” Tooru ducks his head in a bow immediately after Hajime’s words. The old man just waves them off. 

“You should be well enough to leave by tomorrow,” he tells Hajime. “I’ll send the two of you off, but you’d best hurry if you want to make it across the forest before the water drains.” 

He doesn’t mention the alternate of trying to get to shore on the open water. Tooru isn’t sure he’d be brave enough to try again. He blinks as another thought occurs to him. 

“You know about pokemon,” he says. “Does everyone in Violet know?” 

“I’d sure hope so. We live surrounded by ‘em. For anyone not to know, they’d probably have to bust their head harder than your boy here.” He frowns. “You boys are carryin’ around that old book and you mean to tell me you had no idea pokemon were around?” 

They shake their heads and the old man’s jaw drops. 

“My god. Unbelievable. Well, you’re sure in for a treat” 

“Yeah,” Hajime murmurs. If the realization of Gyarados being real hadn’t set in before, it sure has now. Pokemon _existed_. “I guess we are.” 

**Author's Note:**

> i intended for this to be longer and it is entirely written, it jus needs time to be edited and polished that i dont have right now. nonetheless i hope part 1 was good, it was a pleasure to write for this event, and expect the other parts sometime in the future. c:


End file.
